Former Princeton superintendent Paul Houston explains the crisis in school leadership.
By: Jeff Milgram
"My name is Paul Houston and I’m a recovering superintendent," deadpanned Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators.
Tall, white-haired and sounding every bit like the preacher’s son he is, Dr. Houston, superintendent of the Princeton Regional Schools from 1977 to 1986, used humor to explain the crisis in school leadership to a group of educators and elected officials at the Doral Forrestal Conference Center in Plainsboro on Friday.
"I had a long and happy time in Princeton well, as long and happy a time you can have in Princeton," Dr. Houston said. "Superintendents bear the same relationship with their communities as fire hydrants have with dogs."
And that rocky relationship between superintendent and community says a lot about why the leadership crisis is all too real, he said.
According to a report by the Citizens for Better Schools, prepared for Friday’s Education Leadership Summit, 60 percent of all school districts in the state say they cannot attract enough quality applicants for principals’ positions and about half the nation’s superintendents are expected to retire in the next five years.
"We’re going to need 8,000 new superintendents in the next few years," Dr. Houston said. He added that firms that help districts recruit superintendents say the searches that once took four months are now lasting 11 months.
There are many reasons for the shortages, Dr. Houston said, and one of them is that superintendents feel like they are gladiators "alone in the arena, being judged by the crowd."
He said when there is a vacancy for superintendent, districts have to choose from a narrow pool of candidates. New superintendents are about 10 years older than they used to be and stay on the job a shorter time. Superintendents now retire at an average age of 54, five years earlier than they used to.
Dr. Houston said the problem is worse in rural and urban areas.
Superintendents want out because the job is abusive, Dr. Houston said.
"I’m talking about people meeting you at the grocery store and calling you names and calling your family names," Dr. Houston said.
Another problem is the superintendent’s relationship with the school board. "There are some really squirrelly boards out there," he said.
Case in point, the board in Tucson, Ariz., where Dr. Houston moved from Princeton.
He said one of the first things his new school board president there told him was "my job is to thwart you. And to her credit, she did just that."
Dr. Houston said school boards must renegotiate the "social contract" with their superintendents and come to clear terms about the division of duties.
He said problem boards act like city councils, micromanaging their districts by trying to metaphorically fix the potholes and collect garbage.
Another problem is pay and job security. The pay differential is so small that teachers often find little incentive to become principals, Dr. Houston said. And principals find little incentive to exchange their tenure for superintendencies that require such long hours that family life is shortchanged, he added. And when you factor in the long work day, superintendents often earn less per hour than teachers, he said.
"I went to the board (in Princeton) and said, ‘I’ve got a deal for you. I’ll take the hourly rate of the lowest-paid teacher.’ The board said, ‘Are you crazy?’ " Dr. Houston recounted.
The problem is that some good people don’t want to be superintendents, he said.
"Women are too smart to take the job," he said.
Minority representation in the ranks of principals and superintendents is rising, from 3.9 percent in 1992 to 5.1 percent currently.
"But minorities are not in the pipeline from top to bottom," he said. "Their casualty rate tends to be higher than whites."
The job of superintendent is evolving and growing, Dr. Houston said. The job title should be superintendent of education, rather than superintendent of schools, he noted.
"You can’t ignore the buses and budgets, but you have to look at community, community-building, child advocacy," Dr. Houston said.
It’s also about dealing with paradoxes and dilemmas.
"I realized that for 17 years I grappled with issues that had no solutions," he said.
"We don’t know what works and doesn’t work," Dr. Houston said.

